PAD 2020 in sync with The Myth: the story continues to change

Our old friend Zaven Khachaturian has launched a new initiative called PAD 2020 (Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease in ten years). His estimated price tag is 10 billion dollars. He essentially says we must rethink the way we are approaching Alzheimer’s Disease and learn from our mistakes. Sounds like our message in The Myth (except maybe we would differ about what we would do with 10 billion dollars) as I will demonstrate below. Rusty Katz from the FDA and Zaven recently were visiting scholars at the Institute of Aging at the University of Pennsylvania. Rusty started with a provocative slide which basically asked do we really know what AD really is:

Zaven then spoke and showed only three slides – each one demonstrates an essential point in our book. The first points out that AD is heterogeneous. Zaven himself emphasized there are many different factors which influence the rates of progression and other features of the condition (s). We make the same point in the book. When is the heterogeneity so great and the causative factors so many that we would all agree not to consider this a single disease. Zaven was critical of those scientists who limit their perspectives to a single biological mechanisms (like amyloid, for example). Remember that Zaven’s old boss at the NIA Bob Butler also no longer believes that AD is a single condition.

Next Zaven showed a slide of “Diseased Nerve Cells” from the work of A. B. Scheibel. Note the absence of plagues and tangles. Are those ubiquitous features of AD now less important in the new story? In fact Professor Scheibel worked mainly on changes in aging brains. Are these actually diseased neurons or aging neurons? Perhaps we are admitting to more confusion about the relationship between aging and AD.

Finally Zaven ended by showing a slide with the words Health Aging (sic) (perhaps he meant healthy) to the right of curves that showed various trajectories of”degeneration.” Perhaps the message here is that if you take care of yourself you will likely live a longer and healthier life and be more likely to die without a period of prolonged illness That again is our book’s message. Healthy (brain) aging is the result of living well with social engagement, mental and physical activity, and a good diet just as we say in the book.

In one of his last blogs Danny asked what you would do with $1.6 million, now consider what you could do with $10 billion!

Comments

Everyone in America impacted in some way by dementia should cut, paste, and copy this page and bring it with them to their next alzheimer’s group meeting and talk about what it means to them.

Everyone in American should copy this page and bring it with you the next time you visit your doctor’s office, any doctor’s office. It’s time they took some responsibility for the irresponsibility of some of their colleagues. Ask them to explain to you what causes dementia? Why would spending 10 billion MORE dollars in the next ten years bring us one step closer to curing something they can’t come close to reaching a consessus on if it is, what it is, and is it curable.

Disagree on the details, but stop arguing about how much is enough, and starting asking why? Please.

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[...] will accelerate the reconsideration of the scientific path we are on and the false hopes we create. A few days ago I blogged about PAD 2020 – the ten billion dollar commitment to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease. The data used to support [...]